


Daisies on a Windowsill

by isleofapplepies



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daisy Lives, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Post season three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isleofapplepies/pseuds/isleofapplepies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They leave Honolulu Heights to start anew but new is just old wearing a cleaner coat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daisies on a Windowsill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themountainkingsreturn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themountainkingsreturn/gifts).



With an impatient sigh Nina folded her magazine in half and shot Annie a pointed look. Sitting on the table by the window Annie shifted just ever so slightly that Nina could not see her face. Nina cleared her throat. And again. Loudly.

“Add honey in your tea if you’re unwell. There’s a new jar in the pantry,” Annie muttered, lifting a corner of the curtain and peering into the dark street. “And maybe don’t go near Eve until you feel better,” she said as an after-thought. “George and I can take care of her.”

“Annie.”

Annie did not turn. She continued to press her face against the reflective surface of the window pane, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a pout. “You might now think it’s just a little cough but sister of my cousin’s boyfriend started out just like that and the next day she had nosebleed and was coughing up blood and it turned out her pharynx was all holey and full of puss, like rotten.” The window fogged where the stream of words pressed against the glass. “She was also doing cocaine at that time so that could be related.”

Nina opened her mouth, swept her gaze from Annie to the magazine in her hands and back, and closed her mouth again. “Annie, out of two of us I have immeasurably greater knowledge of medicine, so don’t be offended when I say this is a load of horseshit.”

Annie made a little humming sound. “I don’t actually believe the cocaine thing was true.”

“Annie, can we talk about this? Without you constantly derailing the conversation?”

That seemed to have done it. With a frown, Annie glanced over at Nina. “We _are_ talking.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Nina groaned and turned her eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t think I can handle another grisly tale your distant relatives either read in The Sun or quite possibly made up themselves. On top of them never being medically sound they are also riddled with plot holes, which George never fails to notice and guess who has to listen to his rants when he wakes up in the middle of the night with a mighty need to share his latest Sherlockian findings?” Nina put on a grim smile and pointed a thumb at herself. “We need to talk about this entirely unhealthy, obsessive, and frankly disturbing pet project of yours.”

Annie shifted on the table to face Nina and swung her legs over its edge. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Do you think I don’t know it’s all these things, and more?” Her voice might have sounded calm but there was a bitter edge to it. “After what we’ve just gone through?”

Nina’s eyes dropped to her lap. She put the magazine aside on the couch and made to stand up but the sound of Annie’s voice stilled her where she sat.

“I know it takes me time but I actually _do_ learn from my mistakes.” She was smiling in that way she always smiled when holding back tears. “But I need to do this. For myself, Nina.”

Nina’s mouth twisted into a doubtful grimace. “We cannot ever let another vampire enter this house, Annie. That’s what we agreed. All of us together.”

“I’m not inviting Daisy in,” Annie said in a firm voice.

“Not yet,” Nina muttered. “Look, when she appeared we agreed to stay out of her way as long as she stays out of ours. I don’t know what business she has walking through our street every night but everything else aside, she was participant in Mitchell’s massacre.”

Annie looked at her friend. “Don’t,” she said.

“Annie—“

“I understand why you’re worried but let’s keep Mitchell out of this, can we?” A tremor ran through her voice, pulling at vowels’ edges.

Nina took in a deep breath, a long one to show Annie she was thinking her words through. “I don’t think we can,” she said. “This is about him after all, isn’t it?”

Annie’s face crumpled into a frown but before she could say anything, Nina continued. “You’re grieving for him. That’s alright. Frankly I’d be worried if you weren’t. But this woman is not the same as him. She has no interest in… being tame. She is not our friend and that’s how it should stay.”

“It will,” Annie said. “I’m being careful. And I have you to keep an eye on me, don’t I?” she added with a cheerful note in her voice, sliding off the table and reaching one hand out to Nina.

Nina’s warm fingers curled over Annie’s hand. She smiled a little as Annie dropped to the couch next to her, resting her head on Nina’s shoulder. Cold breeze blew in from the window Annie left ajar. Snaking her arm behind Annie’s shoulders Nina drew her close, hand delving into the thick ringlets of Annie’s hair. “You do have me,” she said. “Of course you do. But I’m not omnipotent. Or omnipresent. No omnis here at all.”

Annie let out a shaky laugh and closed her eyes. “I’m so tired,” she muttered against Nina’s shoulder after a couple of seconds when Nina just stroked her hair gently. “I turned down the door once. For Mitchell. And George. And ever since then I’ve had to hold onto this world with all the strength in my… well, not my body, I don’t really have one, do I?”

Seconds ticked by in silence before Nina’s hand stilled in Annie’s hair. “Oh, you expected me to answer? Honey, I’m not an expert on ghost anatomy.” She resumed playing with Annie’s curls. “I don’t know if what you have constitutes a body but you are definitely here.”

“I know,” Annie said. She made a small speculative humming noise and her eyes opened for a little while, surveying the calm and safety of their new High Wycombe home.  “But is it good for anything? That I’m here? I can hold onto this world, you and George, and the precious little bundle you two made—“

“Eve. You can say it, Annie, her name is Eve.”

“—but the world keeps slipping from my grasp. I stayed for Mitchell once and where is he now.”

“In a vacuum cleaner at Honolulu Heights I presume.”

“Nina!” Annie sat up straight, the abrupt movement throwing Nina’s arms off her shoulders. Her eyes blazed with hurt. “That was—that, that wasn’t necessary.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Nina sighed and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “It’s a habit. Sometimes I don’t think I’m fully aware of his absence,” she added in a low whisper. “Or of what it’s done. What it’s doing.”

Annie hummed an acknowledgment and leaned back, arms folded over knees drawn to her chest. She turned her gaze to the dark window at which she’d been sitting a little while ago. She had stayed for Mitchell, among others, but Mitchell was gone now. The grisly circumstances of his departure did not change the fact that a part of what tied her to the world of the living had vanished into the great unknown.

George would follow one day. So would Nina.

Would Annie still feel the need to stay for Eve? Eve’s family? To let herself be dragged through death after death before she’d accept she did not belong anymore?

This was her first time in High Wycombe. To be honest she found it a little underwhelming. Nice town, close to London, but it just wasn’t _Annie_ enough. No place would ever be _Annie_ enough again. Neither would she.

“Nina, do you need me here?”

Nina’s eyes darted over at once, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Annie hesitated. “Just… I’m tired.” She stood up and waved uncertainly towards the kitchen. “I think I’ll just clean up a little in the… um. The cabinets. See what we can throw out so this house doesn’t turn into one of those creepy hoarder places. It’s bad enough it’s severely haunted,” she added with a laugh.

Nina lifted a corner of her mouth in a stiff smile, inspecting Annie’s face with a gaze that seemed to take in more than what Annie wore in her features, her posture and gestures.  “Annie, about what I said, I—“

“No, don’t worry,” Annie held up her hands palms out, “You said sorry already. It’s fine.”

Nina did not seem convinced. “Well, this isn’t exactly where I was going with that but I’ll take it. So, we’re okay?”

Annie nodded resolutely. “We’re okay.”

Nina heaved in a breath and on a long exhale lifted herself from the sofa. “In that case I’m going upstairs to enjoy waking my fiancé with your charming tale of rotten pharynxes.” She quirked her eyebrow at Annie and threw in a slow, delighted smile.

Annie’s face lit up at once just as Nina hoped it would. Her voice turned velvety and soft and she crooned: “You’re gonna be a bri- _iii_ -de.” She basically glided over the floor to grab Nina’s hands in her own. The next words from her mouth were extremely choked up but Nina had heard that particular supersonic whimper many times before from both Annie and George and therefore could tell when she was being (rather redundantly) informed she was getting married.

“Not quite yet,” Nina said softly. “There will be many, many sleeps yet before that happens.”

Annie whacked her on the arm. “If that were the case I’d never get to see it happen,” she laughed. “I don’t sleep.”

“Well, I do,” Nina said, looking at Annie with heavy eyelids, and she leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “Go make tea or whatever it is you do to relax these days. Don’t think too hard.”

 “And if any vampires drop by to chat about whoever their current lord and saviour is, tell them we’re not interested, I get it.”

“Don’t take any leaflets and brochures from them either,” Nina added.

Annie’s eyebrows knitted together. “Do you think they actually have some propagandist literature?” she asked.

Nina shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them. They’ve had their share of regular Nazi wannabes for leaders.” She picked up her magazine and finished her tea in two sips.

“Maybe it’s not Daisy,” Annie said, taking Nina’s vacated place on the couch. “I’ve never really seen her face, we just assumed…” She trailed off, avoiding Nina’s intent gaze. In the adjoined kitchen the clock ticked. Loudly.

Nina cleared her throat.

“Alright, fine,” Annie rolled her eyes at last. “It is her. She drinks our tea and leaves daisies in the empty cups like a signature.”

“Every night, Annie,” Nina shook her head. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Annie shrugged and her curls bounced. “Maybe not entirely. But I know what I am not doing and what I won’t let this to turn into. Can you trust me on that?”

Nina gave a solemn nod. “That’s enough for me.”  

Annie glanced down at her knees and exhaled. Then, unexpectedly, she chuckled. “But you know what?” she said, raising a finger. “I’ve been leaving tea for her on the windowsill for weeks now and she has yet to break a single cup. Which is more than I can say about certain inhabitants of this house.”

Nina laughed. Her eyes still spelled concern but her laugher was sincere. “George is lucky we’re not booting him from the island just on account of the crockery damage he caused.”

Annie gave a fierce nod, eyes wide as saucers. “I swear I am this close to putting an ad in the paper, just to freak him out. Roommate wanted. Looking for non-smokers with a positive relationship to crockery.”

“Must be infant-and-ghost-friendly.”  

“Not suitable for dog allergy sufferers.”

Nina opened her mouth in mock offense. “Rude! Probably a fair warning though.”

Annie shrugged. “As if it mattered. Any place we pass through automatically becomes unrentable.” She picked up an empty mug from the coffee table. Having taken one look at it she presented it to Nina with a sigh. “See, new and already chipped. What, does he have some unresolved issues with this house?”

Nina grimaced and her voice dropped into a whisper. “I think he does. On some subconscious level.”

Annie let the hand holding the mug fall to her lap. Her eyes darted to the nearest dark corner. “We made the right choice moving out of Honolulu Heights, didn’t we?”

“Yes. God, Annie, yes. I shudder to think what would become of us there. So George breaks shit here and you leave tea on the windowsill for our friendly neighbourhood psycho killer. Better than buried alive in that Haunted Little House on the Prairie.”

Annie smiled softly. “You’re right.” She looked at Nina and a frown creased her brow. “Wait, does this make you the only well-adjusted adult in here? No, Nina. No. I don’t believe that. You developed some weird coping habit. What is it?”

Nina gave her a patient look, tilting her head to side a little. “Being a mother. Which includes going to bed at a reasonable hour,” she said slowly, her voice layered with meaning.

“Oh, yes. Right. Sorry.” Annie waved her hand from the sofa, a laughing apology ringing in her voice. “Go. Sleep well, darling.”

“I will. Love you.”

Pausing by the door to the hallway Nina turned around to give the sleepless woman one last adoring, worried glance. Annie’s attention had already moved from her friend to some hidden plane of existence that her gentle ghostly fingers mapped on surface of the chipped mug. Cool breeze from the open window stroked her hair, as invisible to the mundane eye as the curls it nudged to a side.

“Good night, Annie.”

 


End file.
